Work Experience

11/2015-09/2016

Teaching and Research Assistant for the courses of North American History and Anglo-American Literature (Cultore della materia per le cattedre di Storia dell'America del Nord e Letteratura Angloamericana), University of Bergamo.

10/2015-today

Translator (EN, DE > IT) at Omnia Language Solutions S.r.l., Bergamo.

05/2015-07/2015

Substitute German teacher at the State institute for commerce and tourism “Istituto Guido Galli”, Bergamo.

02/2015-05/2015

Personal tutor at “Wall Street English Institute”, Bergamo.

“The Exploitation of the Concept of Religious Freedom and Its Role in the Social Imaginary that Led to the Victory of Donald Trump”

Reading the newsletters and the online articles of organizations belonging to the pro-life and pro-family movement, one cannot but notice how their rhetoric is directed at building a narrative of religious freedom under threat. The attackers are alternatively identified as the liberals, the left, the secular and liberal media, and the Democratic Party. And religious freedom is used as an umbrella concept that includes all issues that might be the cause of division, or political polarization, in the public opinion and in the political debate. These include abortion, LGBTQ issues, prayer in public schools, exemption under the law on matters regarding contraception or same-sex marriage, Scriptures’ verses in public places, and others.

Even though the narrative of the threat to religious freedom is not a novelty in the movement’s rhetoric, I argue that, in the last three years, its dramatic tone has increased, and has proven particularly effective in combination with Donald Trump’s figure, first as a candidate, and now as president. Where Trump has spoken to the fears of external aggression, and has directed his promises and his actions toward the rebuilding of a stronger nation in the eyes of the world, the Religious Right has played into the same perceived sense of threatened identity, belonging to some voters, but leveraging aspects of the Christian faith that need protection and reaffirmation as symbols of a white, Christian America that is losing its status as preeminent cultural identity in the country.

Thanks to interviews with both members of the pro-life and pro-family movement, and with Christian Trump’s voters, I intend to investigate what role did the threat to religious freedom actually had in their political decision, and what is its relation in comparison to other kinds of concern, such as a more general sense of decline as majoritarian ethnicity in the nation, or the loss of cultural relevance and economic power.